Mercalli v4: How to deal with Flags?

j.razz wrote on 12/28/2017, 8:43 PM

I have some 60p .mov footage I shot using a Canon 5d mIV with a 16-35mm 2.8L lens on a DJI Ronin. The shot starts out following a couple of children while moving and then tilts up as the scene moves up a flag pole to culminate in a slow motion, heavily wind-whipped flag. While tilting up, I had some issues keeping the shot stable. I tried the inbuilt (older ProDad) stabilization and it followed the flag. I also tried using Mercalli v4 on it and I played around with the different settings, but couldn't get it to stabilize the event- it always tries to stabilize the flag. It probably didn't help that the background was an even overcast.

So, my question is, does Mercalli allow for stabilizing the frame rather than the prominent element in the frame?

Comments

NickHope wrote on 12/28/2017, 10:54 PM

There was an idea recently posted to use the cookie cutter as a media FX to mask the area you don't want to be used.

j.razz wrote on 12/28/2017, 11:20 PM

Thanks Nick, I'll give it a go!

NickHope wrote on 12/28/2017, 11:44 PM

If you can't get it to work, you could use the free Deshaker filter in VirtualDub Filtermod, which allows you to exclude areas. I use it with extreme settings to do occasional stabilization. But it's much more complex, fiddly to set up, and (probably) slower than Mercalli.

j.razz wrote on 12/29/2017, 7:55 AM

Does John Meyer's I tutorial still apply? I used to use it all the time but since Vegas 14, when pro dad software was included in my purchase, I started using Mercalli.

NickHope wrote on 12/29/2017, 8:40 AM

There was some sort of automated procedure that probably doesn't apply any more. Also some functionality such as rolling shutter compensation was introduced since John wrote that stuff. However I think elements of it still apply. I seem to remember going even more extreme than John's settings, but at the expense of speed.

NickHope wrote on 12/29/2017, 8:48 AM

Here's my fixed-zoom-no-borders extreme settings: Haven't used or checked them for a while. You can configure an area to ignore in the section at the bottom of Pass 1.

matthias-krutz wrote on 12/29/2017, 8:49 AM

I tried the inbuilt (older ProDad) stabilization and it followed the flag.

If you can find a shape (square, ellipse) of the cookie cutter that overlaps the flag during the event time, then it should work. It's not important to be perfect. The mask should only be smaller than one third of the image area.

VirtualDub has also an option to mask a area. In my tests the results was similar.